Last week I went to Florida and my daughter and I made prayer candles. We printed little notes about her brother (my son), and we passed them as we went about our day. I then left several in airport bathrooms and beyond when my company sent me to Honolulu a few days ago.

I received an email from a couple who found a prayer candle and they said they were lighting the flame and lifting up my son’s name that night. The very next morning my son received an unexpected gift that enabled him to make a payment on the fees that were stopping him from renewing his drivers’ license. I was excited for him and praised God. But it wasn’t enough to open the doorway to freedom for him. Then last night on November 20th, I had a pretty bad breakdown. I was crying and screaming at God, “I might as well be honest Jesus because you know my thoughts anyway!” I yelled at the ceiling as my body was shaking and crying. My temper tantrum was interrupted by my daughter’s text message as she told me how she’d been worshipping and felt great. She was many years ago a worship leader for a mega church in Texas. Then she added onto this that she was seeking a church to sing at, had made it 3 weeks without vaping and she’d been ministering to friends who she’d spoken to recently – people in low spirits.

It took me a few minutes to register how massive these text messages were. These are precise prayers I’d been speaking for many many years over her life. Then she hit me with me tear jerker.

She said, “I want to apologize to you for making you feel alone in your faith for quite some time.” She said she needed to go through that in order to come back to God. She said she NEEDED to be confused.

I may not understand that need but I feel it too. I have for a long time wondered where the Lord has went in these years of troubles. I’ve written letters nightly and cried out from the deepest parts of my being for help – sounding like David in his bipolar psalms. And this is humbling because it reminds me that no matter how much God has done for me and how many miracles I’ve witnessed with my own eyes in this lifetime, I still need a savior today moreso than any day that I’ve ever before lived.

Tonight I laid down for a moment and started meditating and saw a closed door with lights illuminating the edges and I heard the Holy Spirit say, “Door to Freedom.” I thought about how the answered prayers for my son were creating that doorway and how the cry of my own heart was seeking this very thing. I need to feel the freedom of Christ again. I believe I’m free from condemnation and judgement because of his sacrifice as the word says (for the just and unjust). But how do I break from this world and all of its troubles?

Last night my daughter and I read the book of Acts starting in 22 and I hurt for Paul as we followed the script. He finally found truth and the Lord opened him up to his purpose but the outcome of that was a very heavy amount of misery. The very people who he once called family and grew up with now wanted to kill him. The ones he was moving towards wanting nothing to do with him because he was once a murderer of their ways. And on top of that the government leaders of Rome were enslaving him (for 3 years). I would imagine Paul felt very confused and lonely. He was doing what God told him to do and as a result he was beaten, accused, jailed and put on the defense over and over again.

A year ago in Miami I had a dream where Jesus came to me and lifted me off of the beach by my hand. He walked with me on water until we reached another piece of land. There he picked me up and shook dust off me. It looked like a sand storm – so much dust was coming off of me. I woke up thinking that the dust represented my past – as he instructed the disciples to shake the dust off of them when they left a town that didn’t accept them. Shortly after this dream I was sent to Los Angeles.

With a job offer that’s been lingering over my head for the last 5 weeks I have been speaking to God about his will for my life; wondering if he’s about to send me back to Texas. This job offer came as I’d been praying for a new door to open. But since it keeps being prolonged and repeatedly when I speak to the owner I feel the spirit of pride rising against me in various ways. Today as we ended our phone call a text message came across my phone from Texas that read, “Hi this is Kevin from Prideland.” I found it odd – the timing of it.

I have prayed without ceasing for God to show me the path he has for me now and for HIS WILL, not my will to be done. Today I don’t feel good about anything, if I’m being honest with myself. In the conversations with people from my past that seem to make me feel small I’ve taken it personal, but I just think that’s the culture. As in with religion, everyone speaks about God and Jesus but few are following the command of what religion means printed in the book of James. “Pure undefiled religion before God is to take care of the widows, orphans and fatherless and keep oneself spotted from the world.” – James 1:27.

Maybe we live in a season on this planet where the small ones are the ones who are doing ok – although we don’t realize it in this flesh. According the first sermon on the mount, delivered by Jesus:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
⁴ Blessed are those who mourn,
    for they will be comforted.
⁵ Blessed are the meek,
    for they will inherit the earth.
⁶ Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
    for they will be filled.
⁷ Blessed are the merciful,
    for they will be shown mercy.
⁸ Blessed are the pure in heart,
    for they will see God.
⁹ Blessed are the peacemakers,
    for they will be called children of God.
¹⁰ Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

¹¹ “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. ¹² Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

I think often about the story of Sarah and Isaac from the Bible. The promise of Sarah’s life she had waited for decades to receive was the gift of a son. But then God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. But God’s intention was never to let that boy die. An angel intervened and sent a ram in his place and Sarah got her son back alive and well. Reading stories that seem like fiction is worlds apart from living inside of a reality where a mother is made helpless to save what she loves the most. I feel helpless and all day everyday I do my best to cast my worry upon Jesus – to remember that he is the author and finisher of my faith and my story and he’s not done with this script yet.

Perhaps more than anything, I’m just needing to encourage my own soul right now. I’ve seen miracles and so I know God can do it again. But I’m battle weary in praying alone each night in a puddle of my own tears. So if God lives in us and we are to help carry one another’s burdens. Maybe distributing these prayer candles will give me the strength to keep praying – not only for my son to be healed and rescued from his situation but for others too who are going through various trials. Maybe these little lights can somehow connect our hearts together and we can be one voice in one accord asking our Heavenly Father to intervene for all of our children and the orphans & fatherless above all as the scripture says in James 1:27:

²⁷ The only religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans, fatherless and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

I’m not sure where my job will send me tomorrow but I have hundreds of candles packed in my bag. I will leave them wherever I journey and believe that God will place them in the exact hands where they belong. For the prayer warriors, the faithful and the ones who could use a little faithful support too.

I hear this tonight in my inner voice – Proverbs 3 5-6:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart
    and lean not on your own understanding;
⁶ in all your ways submit to him,
    and he will make your paths straight.^[a]

So I don’t need to know where I’m going tomorrow. I just need to trust the Lord and know that he will set my path before me and he has good reason for putting this assignment on my heart.